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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29488158">Pretending's so Comfortable</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reub_is_a_gayyy/pseuds/Reub_is_a_gayyy'>Reub_is_a_gayyy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fall Out Boy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Soulmates, I'm Sorry, M/M, Minor Mikey Way/Pete Wentz, Romantic Soulmates, Sad, Sad Ending, Soulmates, This broke my heart to write, Unrequited Love</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 23:47:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,777</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29488158</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reub_is_a_gayyy/pseuds/Reub_is_a_gayyy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>For most, when you meet your soulmate for the first time, the world becomes bright and full of colour.  It’s an almost unreal experience, overwhelming with sudden brightness.  Unfortunately, this isn’t the case for everyone.  There are only a few people who are forced to face such a harsh reality.  No matter where they go or who they meet, they will live in black and white their whole life.  People like this are referred to as ‘the colour-blind’.<br/>Pete was one of these people.  Or at least he thought he was.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Patrick Stump/Pete Wentz</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Pretending's so Comfortable</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=sunshine+gunner">sunshine gunner</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>You can also find this posted on my wattpad (@sam_is_confuseddd_15) as a part of my Emo Soulmate AUs work.  </p><p>I'm sorry there's a saddness :(  no one dies tho - i promise.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For most, when you meet your soulmate for the first time, the world becomes bright and full of colour.  It’s an almost unreal experience, overwhelming with sudden brightness.  Unfortunately, this isn’t the case for everyone.  There are only a few people who are forced to face such a harsh reality.  No matter where they go or who they meet, they will live in black and white their whole life.  People like this are referred to as ‘the colour-blind’.<br/>Pete was one of these people.  Or at least he thought he was.<br/>Three years ago he had met Patrick - the kindest, gentlest, most perfect guy he had ever met who had flung himself at him expressing his excitement in every way he could.  However, Pete knew immediately that something was wrong, there was no revelation, no colour, nothing.  So he did the only thing he could think of and pretended.<br/>Patrick curled up into Pete’s side, an old episode of Call the Midwife playing on the telly and a packet of chocolate digestives sat on the coffee table.  All in all, it was a regular Saturday night.  Nothing was out of the ordinary for the two boys, nothing was special about that particular Saturday night, not yet at least.<br/>“Hey Panda,” Patrick spoke up as the episode ended, reaching out to grab the TV remote and press pause.<br/>“Yes Pat?” Pete asked, readjusting his position on the couch to be facing more in Patrick’s direction.<br/>“I love you,” Patrick stated boldly.<br/>Fear coursing through his veins, Pete froze up.  This was the first time either of them said those three words and it scared him.  He didn’t feel ready to say them back, he wasn’t sure he would ever feel ready to say them back.  Sure, he felt something for the younger boy, but he wasn’t even sure if you can fall in love with someone who isn’t necessarily your soulmate.<br/>“I love you too,” he replied calmly, Patrick resting back against Pete’s chest contently.<br/>However, Pete knew this wouldn’t last forever.  One day Patrick would find out that Pete was a colour blind and hate him even more because he lied to him about it.  But he was already in way too deep to stop the inevitable from happening.  So why did pretending have to be so comfortable?</p><p>*</p><p>More recent studies have shown that, only in the rarest of cases, people originally thought to be colour-blind can actually find their soulmate.  They weren’t really colour-blind.  They were just the soulmate of someone who wasn’t their soulmate as well.<br/>If anything, Pete hated this idea even more, more than the idea of never seeing colour.  He would give it all up in the hopes of not hurting Patrick.  So Pete stopped going out so much, becoming more and more reliant on Patrick to get by.  He lost his job, his friends, everything.  Well, everything except Patrick. <br/>The shorter boy couldn’t help but become increasingly more worried about his boyfriend.  To him, the sudden social retreat and isolating behaviour where completely out of the blue.  He had no idea of the constant fear spiralling around inside Pete’s head.  All Patrick knew for sure was that the constant strain of caring for Pete, as well as himself, was beginning to take its toll on him.<br/>“Panda?” Patrick called out into the dark flat as he arrived home from work.  This wasn’t the first time that he had returned to all the lights off and, with each time it happened, his concern increased a little bit more.  At first, he just assumed Pete had decided to get an early night and had turned off the lights so he could sleep but Pete was never in bed on nights like this.  Every time, Patrick would find him curled up in a ball on the sofa rocking his body back and forth ever so slightly, his eyes bloodshot and sore from crying.  “Panda?”<br/>Patrick made his way to the living room, only to be faced with a rather concerning lack of Pete.  <br/>“Panda?” He called for a third time, his voice a little more urgent and panicked than before.  <br/>Quickly, he made his way through the house, not bothering to remove is shoes in his haste, checking the kitchen, dining room, study and bathroom with no luck.  He took a deep breath, trying not to freak out too much since he still had one last room to check, their bedroom.<br/>“Panda, are you in there?”  Patrick asked quietly as his knuckles tapped against the wood thrice before he opened it, a basic sign of respect he had ingrained into muscle memory.  <br/>Lying, passed out on the carpeted floor, was a clearly overly exhausted Pete.  He was resting on his side, his head tiled back and twisted so he was pretty much facing the ceiling.  His lips were slightly parted, and the soft sound of his breathing filled the quiet room.  In front of him was a notebook, left open on a page Pete had definitely not intended to leave it open on.  <br/>Patrick wanted to respect his privacy, he wanted to just shut the notebook put Pete to bed and talk to him about things the next morning, but as he reached out to close it, a single word jumped out at him. Colour-blind.  So he tucked Pete into their shared bed and crouched on the floor to read what was written.<br/>He couldn’t help himself, he had to know why it was there.<br/>‘I hate this so much!  The idea of hurting him!  Why did I have to be colour-blind?  Why couldn’t I just have been colour-blind?  Why does one lanky guy with glasses and a beanie have to show up and ruin everything?<br/>I was happy living a simple life with Patrick in black and white!  <br/>Not that I might ever see him again though.  I just kind of ran off, didn’t even remember to buy more milk.  I feel horrible that Patrick can’t have his morning coffee tomorrow.  <br/>I feel horrible that Patrick can’t  just have the happy life he deserves.<br/>I feel horrible that Patrick isn’t my soulmate.’<br/>Tears sprung from Patrick’s eyes, his heart felt like it was being torn in two, but he slipped into bed next to Pete regardless, comforted, but also greatly saddened, by the thought of it probably being his last night accompanied by the warmth of his soulmate.  His soulmate who’s soulmate was someone else.</p><p>*</p><p>The next morning Patrick didn’t even bother walking into the kitchen to try and grab a morning coffee.  He already knew there wouldn’t be any milk in the fridge.<br/>“Morning Pat,” Pete called out from the bathroom, the muffled tone to his voice letting Patrick know that he was brushing his teeth.<br/>The shorter boy was turned to face the kitchen counter, a glass of tap water in his hand.  He had already called in sick to work, although it made him feel horribly guilty to lie.  <br/>Footsteps sounded behind him, trailing into the kitchen.<br/>“I love you,” Patrick whispered, facing the wall and holding back the tears.<br/>“I lo-“ Pete began.<br/>“Don’t,” Patrick interrupted, his voice louder than it was before but still quieter than his usual volume.  “Please Pete.  Don’t say it back just because I said it.”<br/>There was a pause while both boys worked out what they wanted to say.  Patrick was the next to speak.<br/>“All my life I thought it would be hard to find ‘the one’.  Then I found you and everything seemed to be perfect,”  he scoffed, pushing away from the counter slightly, his head tilting down to look at his feet before returning to where it had been, staring directly at the blank wall.   “It’s bittersweet really because, for the first time in my life, you gave me something to lose.  Something I really don’t want to lose but that I have to say goodbye to.”<br/>Pete couldn’t stop the floods of tears from cascading down his cheeks like waterfalls.  At this point, there was no doubt in his mind that Patrick knew.  There was no doubt in his mind that Patrick was hurting.  And he knew that he was the cause of his hurt.<br/>Patrick turned to face his boyfriend.<br/>“I love you Pete, I love you so much.”<br/>He took a few slow steps until he was standing directly in front of Pete who was still half awkwardly lingering in the doorway.<br/>“I know Pete.  I wanted to respect your privacy, but I couldn’t help it, I’m sorry.”<br/>“Don’t be sorry,”  he choked out.<br/>“I am, I am sorry.  I’m sorry you’ve wasted so long on me.  I won’t let you waste everything you are on me.  Please, go and find that boy, the tall one with glasses who makes you feel the way you’ve made me feel for the past four years.  I want you to be as happy as you’ve made me,”  Patrick replied, his voice lowering back down to a whisper as his hands found their way onto Pete’s tear-stained cheeks, stray tears beginning to fall down his own face as well.  He was proud he had held off the tears for this long.  “Promise me you’ll be happy.”<br/>“I’m sorry Patrick, I’m so, so sorry.  I wanted to love you.  I wanted to so bad.  I even though I did until I saw him,”  Pete cried.<br/>“Don’t blame yourself for the pain I feel,” Patrick said, the years they had spent together allowing him to know how Pete was feeling.  “It has to hurt before it starts to heal.  I’m not going to regret the last four years, even though it hurts to know you didn’t feel the same.  Promise me you won’t forget me, that you won’t regret being with me.”<br/>“I promise.”</p><p>The rest of the day was spent packing up Pete’s things.  He was going to move in with an old friend from high school, Frank Iero, so that Patrick could have his flat back to himself.  But Patrick constantly reminded him that he was welcome to come back and stay whenever he wanted.<br/>“Goodbye Patrick,”  Pete said as he gathered his bags into his hands at the front door.<br/>“It’s not goodbye, Panda, just see you later,” Patrick replied, a faint smile on his face.  He was hurt but he was coping.  “Just, before you go, were you ever going to tell me?  If I didn’t find out myself?”<br/>Pete looked down at his feet, gripping his bag handle tighter, as he whispered, “no.”<br/>“Goodbye Pete.”<br/>And with that, Patrick shut the door.<br/>Suddenly he wasn’t coping so well.</p>
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